Debate about Vert- in Mass Effect ...

[MobsterOO7]

We need a tallscreen screenshot of Mass Effect!

[kyleb]

Got any in game footage (where you move or shoot at things) that show how the 4:3 users lose from the extra view?

Of course not. As I have been explaining from the begining, the point of addapting a 16:9 game to 4:3 using vert+ is so that 4:3 users don't lose any of the 16:9 veiw those games were designed for.

Also, Kyleb, do you mind answering for once how you explain that ALL Unreal 3 engine based games have the exact same FOV...

They don't all use the same FOV. For instance, Mass Effect's default FOV is 80 while Bioshock's default FOV is 75.

.
..and deal with widescreen resolutions vs 4:3? Or do you still suggest that the developers of all those games just happen to have the same artistic view and belief on what looks better for widescreen users, including the more limited camera view and zoomed in aspect.

I never suggested "that the developers of all those games just happen to have the same artistic view and belief on what looks better for widescreen users." Again, the games in question, and the UE3 engine itself, were all designed to target current generation consoles 16:9 output. They built the games for widescreen, and addapted them to 4:3 from there.

[BlueMak]

No.

[Abram]

I don't understand what there is to debate here.

Their method, intentional or not, was still wrong - regardless of 'artistic vision', graphics engine nuances, or individual preference.

Widescreen should mean jsut that. Wide. Not aputated.

If anything this thread should be shoved into the official Bioware forums.

(of which I was just today, without warning, banned from. So I can't start it.)

before you ask, i was banned for telling a guy to use a crack because his game, which had clearly bough because he was able to post in the forums, wasn't finding his net connection and thus would not start. No good deed goes unpunished, eh?

[Aziraphale Jasra]

@mikeh: That's the thing, the widescreen is only the amputated version in some of these cases (Unreal Tournament 3 being one example), in other cases (such as Mass Effect) the widescreen version is the normal version and the 4:3 version has the addition of, to extend your metaphor, some sort of tumorous growth, and regardless of whether it's malignant or benign, it's still not supposed to be there, and it has the potential to cause problems.

The widescreen version isn't always the widest (even when it's the original version), and just because it is that doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to be seen.
This is true in both movies and video games.
As examples, the widescreen version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is matted from a 4:3 frame, blocking out all sorts of extra information that the viewer was never intended to see. By the same token, the Buffy the Vampire TV series is meant to be seen in 4:3 even though the 16:9 version shows more (more picture, more crew members, more recording equipment...).
In video game terms, when I play the original F.E.A.R. on my 16:10 monitor, I play it in 4:3 pillarboxed. When I first played through Half Life 2, it was on a 4:3 monitor, and I played it 16:9 letterboxed (and I still do, the black bars are just a bit smaller now that I have a 16:10 monitor).
Like it or not, these games have intended resolutions just like movies do.

Keep in mind that I'm not disagreeing with you when you say that their implementation is wrong, but it's no more wrong than a large number of certified titles (Armed Assault, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Darwinia, DEFCON, Dreamfall, Fable, Jericho, Lego Star Wars II, etc.).
As far as I'm concerned, the only proper way to do it would be to allow for completely arbitrary resolutions with full control of HUD position, FOV and AR, anything less is just as wrong as UE3's implementation when it comes right down to it.